The Poetics of Internet Memes

“I believe in low theory in popular places, in the small, the inconsequential, the antimonumental, the micro, the irrelevant; I believe in making a difference by thinking little thoughts and sharing them widely” ⤴️
“we might think of memes as having a structure which afford certain opportunities for engagement and limit certain uses of it as a digital media, while also acknowledging that there are no “laws” determining how a meme must to be used (though there are certainly norms).” ⤴️
“creating, distributing, and reading memes all engage social practices which intersect with various structures simultaneously, both internal and external.” ⤴️
“In Dawkin’s book The Selfish Gene, he defines memes as “discrete units of knowledge, gossip, jokes and so on,” going on to postulate that “cultural evolution may be driven by the most successful memes” (1976).” ⤴️
“Memes are metaphoric in nature, meaning that they represent one thing in terms of another. In the most basic sense, a meme represents experience in terms of an infinite combination of images and text.” ⤴️
“The central aspect of the meme is its image, through which the text is interpreted. The essence of the image in a meme is two-fold. First, it is objectified—literally and figuratively made into an object. In linguistic terms, it is any image that is entextualized, or lifted out of its original context so that it can circulate in discourse (Bauman and Briggs 1992, 73). Second, the image is recognizable. This is a difficult aspect to analyze given that recognition depends not only on legibility, but also on prior communication.” ⤴️
“What happens to reading practices when recognizability breaks down?” ⤴️
“dynamic of person-to-person meme-sharing as opposed to publishing a meme in a public forum?” ⤴️
“the ambiguity of the meme image and its potential meaning(s) can be a resource for anthropological thought and practice.” ⤴️
“another way memes are used, which is without specific reference to the social context of the still.” ⤴️
“what the meme communicates is made more powerful if a reader understands the context from which the image was lifted.” ⤴️
“there are a lot of (1) overdramatized expressions, (2) progressive sequences (similar to “Gru’s Presentation”), and (3) pairings of basic text that accompany the image before the creator adds text of their own.” ⤴️
“The repeated use of a particular meme creates a set of rules, often implicit, for the types of messages that should accompany a particular meme, as well as the typical placement for text on the meme image. The result is not only a typified use, but also the proliferation of subversive and transformative engagements with particular memes, revealing the inherently social nature of this digital medium.” ⤴️
“what types of messages does this medium make possible?” ⤴️
“ease of (re)production and circulation made possible through the internet and digital technologies.” ⤴️
“meme as revelation, meme as critique, and meme as ideation.” ⤴️
“These ideologies show us, “the ways the medium shapes the message,” helping us to see “the communicative possibilities and the material limitations of a specific channel” (Gershon 2010, 283).” ⤴️
“their association with internet culture, “low” art, and post-GenXers. As Gershon (2010) explains, “media become perceived as formal or informal just as registers are perceived as formal or informal”” ⤴️
“democratization of meme production is what allows for the “subversive and transformative engagements”” ⤴️
“relegated memes to what Halberstam (2011) calls “the silly archive,” comprised of texts which “might offer strange and anticapitalist logics of being and acting and knowing” (20–21). This is what makes memes so deeply political—they are able to bypass the dominant cultural logics of “being and acting and knowing” that often constrain our imaginations and tie concepts and ideas to particular mediums.” ⤴️
“accessibility of and creative engagement with memes reveal that it is not only meme images themselves that shape their message, but also the ways in which users understand memes as a medium” ⤴️
“meme (re)production, like supply chains, “don’t merely use preexisting diversity; they also revitalize and create niche segregation through advising economic performance”” ⤴️
“consider the production of memes through the model of the supply chain, thinking with Anna Tsing (2009) about the salience of global capitalism.” ⤴️
“The meme economy is intimately related to media ideology, since the “beliefs, attitudes, and strategies” regarding memes influence motivations for the (re)production and circulation of certain memes” ⤴️
“Meme as revelation refers to the way a meme can be used to expose underlying meanings, logics, and processes in an experience, event, structure, or institution.” ⤴️
“reveal the strangeness of everyday social practices” ⤴️
“You might also think of this as a sort of “thick description,” an insight or interpretation made legible through the vernacular. Earlier I described the perception of memes as “informal,” and by vernacular I mean both informal and everyday. I think of memes as a type of “vernacular creativity,” which refers to “creative practices that emerge from highly particular and non-elite social contexts and communicative conventions,” e.g., the internet (Burgess 2006, 206).” ⤴️
“When memes are used as critique, they can focus on familiar, everyday practices that go unquestioned, while offering broader sociocultural, political, and economic critiques.” ⤴️
“memes as ideation, or how memes are used to imagine new futures.” ⤴️
“focus more on what a world might look like in the absence of a practice, system, institution, policy, etc., rather than focusing on injustice itself.” ⤴️
“Memes are probably one of the most diverse and accessible mediums in the world today. While many scholars in the humanities and social sciences have explored memes, there is a need to more thoroughly theorize memes’ roles in social life and their potential for informing anthropological thought and method.” ⤴️
“I believe in low theory in popular places, in the small, the inconsequential, the antimonumental, the micro, the irrelevant; I believe in making a difference by thinking little thoughts and sharing them widely” ⤴️
“we might think of memes as having a structure which afford certain opportunities for engagement and limit certain uses of it as a digital media, while also acknowledging that there are no “laws” determining how a meme must to be used (though there are certainly norms).” ⤴️
“creating, distributing, and reading memes all engage social practices which intersect with various structures simultaneously, both internal and external.” ⤴️
“In Dawkin’s book The Selfish Gene, he defines memes as “discrete units of knowledge, gossip, jokes and so on,” going on to postulate that “cultural evolution may be driven by the most successful memes” (1976).” ⤴️
“Memes are metaphoric in nature, meaning that they represent one thing in terms of another. In the most basic sense, a meme represents experience in terms of an infinite combination of images and text.” ⤴️
“The central aspect of the meme is its image, through which the text is interpreted. The essence of the image in a meme is two-fold. First, it is objectified—literally and figuratively made into an object. In linguistic terms, it is any image that is entextualized, or lifted out of its original context so that it can circulate in discourse (Bauman and Briggs 1992, 73). Second, the image is recognizable. This is a difficult aspect to analyze given that recognition depends not only on legibility, but also on prior communication.” ⤴️
“What happens to reading practices when recognizability breaks down?” ⤴️
“dynamic of person-to-person meme-sharing as opposed to publishing a meme in a public forum?” ⤴️
“the ambiguity of the meme image and its potential meaning(s) can be a resource for anthropological thought and practice.” ⤴️
“another way memes are used, which is without specific reference to the social context of the still.” ⤴️
“what the meme communicates is made more powerful if a reader understands the context from which the image was lifted.” ⤴️
“there are a lot of (1) overdramatized expressions, (2) progressive sequences (similar to “Gru’s Presentation”), and (3) pairings of basic text that accompany the image before the creator adds text of their own.” ⤴️
“The repeated use of a particular meme creates a set of rules, often implicit, for the types of messages that should accompany a particular meme, as well as the typical placement for text on the meme image. The result is not only a typified use, but also the proliferation of subversive and transformative engagements with particular memes, revealing the inherently social nature of this digital medium.” ⤴️
“what types of messages does this medium make possible?” ⤴️
“ease of (re)production and circulation made possible through the internet and digital technologies.” ⤴️
“meme as revelation, meme as critique, and meme as ideation.” ⤴️
“These ideologies show us, “the ways the medium shapes the message,” helping us to see “the communicative possibilities and the material limitations of a specific channel” (Gershon 2010, 283).” ⤴️
“their association with internet culture, “low” art, and post-GenXers. As Gershon (2010) explains, “media become perceived as formal or informal just as registers are perceived as formal or informal”” ⤴️
“democratization of meme production is what allows for the “subversive and transformative engagements”” ⤴️
“relegated memes to what Halberstam (2011) calls “the silly archive,” comprised of texts which “might offer strange and anticapitalist logics of being and acting and knowing” (20–21). This is what makes memes so deeply political—they are able to bypass the dominant cultural logics of “being and acting and knowing” that often constrain our imaginations and tie concepts and ideas to particular mediums.” ⤴️
“accessibility of and creative engagement with memes reveal that it is not only meme images themselves that shape their message, but also the ways in which users understand memes as a medium” ⤴️
“meme (re)production, like supply chains, “don’t merely use preexisting diversity; they also revitalize and create niche segregation through advising economic performance”” ⤴️
“consider the production of memes through the model of the supply chain, thinking with Anna Tsing (2009) about the salience of global capitalism.” ⤴️
“The meme economy is intimately related to media ideology, since the “beliefs, attitudes, and strategies” regarding memes influence motivations for the (re)production and circulation of certain memes” ⤴️
“Meme as revelation refers to the way a meme can be used to expose underlying meanings, logics, and processes in an experience, event, structure, or institution.” ⤴️
“reveal the strangeness of everyday social practices” ⤴️
“You might also think of this as a sort of “thick description,” an insight or interpretation made legible through the vernacular. Earlier I described the perception of memes as “informal,” and by vernacular I mean both informal and everyday. I think of memes as a type of “vernacular creativity,” which refers to “creative practices that emerge from highly particular and non-elite social contexts and communicative conventions,” e.g., the internet (Burgess 2006, 206).” ⤴️
“When memes are used as critique, they can focus on familiar, everyday practices that go unquestioned, while offering broader sociocultural, political, and economic critiques.” ⤴️
“memes as ideation, or how memes are used to imagine new futures.” ⤴️
“focus more on what a world might look like in the absence of a practice, system, institution, policy, etc., rather than focusing on injustice itself.” ⤴️
“Memes are probably one of the most diverse and accessible mediums in the world today. While many scholars in the humanities and social sciences have explored memes, there is a need to more thoroughly theorize memes’ roles in social life and their potential for informing anthropological thought and method.” ⤴️